Panafrican News Agency

Libyan media highlight meetings in New York and preparations for the international conference

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Increasing meetings on Libya on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, ahead of the International Conference on Libya to be held in Berlin, Germany, next fall have dominated the news covered by Libyan newspapers this week, as well as positions of the opposing factions on the resumption of political dialogue.
 
Al-Wassat newspaper said the meetings of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly were an important opportunity for a series of intensive consultations between international and regional parties on the Libyan crisis, as part of Germany's efforts to organize this year a conference on Libya in cooperation with the United Nations.
 
In an article titled 'Intensive International Consultations Prior to Berlin Conference', the paper said these consultations showed "an initial agreement on the need to formulate a specific European position on the situation in Libya, with the insistence of creating the conditions for a ceasefire and then return to the overall political process, but instead showed a divergence between the two parties to the internal conflict, who hold the hardened position in the face of the crisis."
 
Libyan weekly al-Wassat appearing in Cairo, Egypt, said that "the European Union, in the context of the need for a unified European position on the crisis, before the meeting on Libya, on Thursday, between France and Italy of which analysts hope that it will mark the beginning of the end of the European differences on the Libyan issue".
 
According to the newspaper, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed a broader view of this unified vision by calling for a "common position of the international community to end the war" at a meeting with Fayez Al-Sarraj, President of the Presidential Council in Libya, while expressing his "concern over foreign interventions that exacerbate the crisis".              

Al-Wassat stressed that analysts expect talks on creating a ceasefire and a return to the political process to be clarified during these consultations, while Washington has taken position in favour of this vision in supporting "the establishment of appropriate conditions" for the ceasefire and return to the overall political process in Libya.
 
The paper pointed out that at the level of neighbouring countries, the role of influential neighbours is the follow-up of any agreement resulting from the Berlin Conference on Libya, scheduled for October, at a time when Algeria has highlighted two necessary conditions before two international meetings, namely the involvement of Libyans themselves in any political initiative, as well as neighbouring countries.
 
Between the persistence of divergent national and regional positions and the relatively relaxed international positions on the Libyan crisis, as shown by the New York meetings, the question of chances of reaching decisive solutions ending the war in Tripoli is to know whether the Berlin Conference will provide a decisive solution to the crisis or it will have the same fate of the Paris and Palermo Conferences, the newspaper queried.
 
Echoing the positions of the two main opponents in the Libyan crisis on the resumption of the political process, namely, President of the Presidential Council, Fayez Al-Sarraj and the head of the Libyan National Army, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Afrigatenews reported that Mr. Al-Sarraj, in a speech at UN headquarters, stated that he will not participate in any political dialogue with Haftar, whom he described as "bloody leader of militia" seeking to grab power.              

The Libyan Arabic-language electronic newspaper Afrigatenews added that Al-Sarraj pointed out that the war in Tripoli killed about 3,000 people and caused the massive displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the fighting areas, calling for Haftar to be listed for  international sanctions, to hold his followers and supporters, namely the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France responsible and prosecute them for killings and destruction.
 
"We call on the United Nations to expedite the dispatch of a United Nations fact-finding mission to document these grave violations and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to expedite investigations, among others," Al-Sarraj was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
 
Afrigatenews also released the position of the Haftar-led Libyan Army General Command that "welcomed the ministerial meeting on Libya to be held on the margins of the UN General Assembly presided on Thursday by France and Italy, in the hope that this meeting would be positive and  serve the interests of the Libyan people in achieving security and stability".
 
The newspaper reported that the Libyan Armed Forces General Command affirmed, in a statement, that it called for peace and has been striving through negotiations to engage acceptable solutions in recent years to address the Libyan people's demands for development and the right to a free, fair and secure democratic political process.
 
Libyan army leaders said, according to the newspaper, that "the democratic process sought by the Libyan people has always been and continues to face the opposition of terrorist groups and armed criminal militias controlling the political, security and economic decision in the capital, Tripoli, and making it impossible to hold elections before the elimination, dismantling and collection of weapons".
 
Returning to efforts to find a solution to the Libyan crisis, Al-Wassat wrote in an article entitled, 'Will the Franco-Italian rapprochement have repercussions on a solution to the Libyan crisis?' that after a long period of friction between France and Italy on the Libyan crisis, signs of reconciliation between Paris and Rome, an agreement on common points to resolve the Libyan crisis and the end of the armed conflict in the country were looming. The United Nations corridors in New York are the scene of a meeting animated jointly by France and Italy on Libya.
 
After Paris has accused Rome of "establishing itself as the main international player in the Libyan crisis", the tone has changed between the two parties, which has eased slightly in recent weeks with the dissolution of the government and the departure last August of Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi, the newspaper reported.
 
The rapprochement between Paris and Rome began with French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Italy last Wednesday and his meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, the newspaper said, reporting that Macron said "there is a real rapprochement" between Italy and France in Libya and that the two countries "know how to work together and send clear messages to their partners".
 
For this paper, in case of an agreement between France and Italy to resolve the crisis in Libya, the ball will be in the Libyan court to sit at the negotiating table and to reach a political solution that satisfies the different parties.
-0- PANA BY/IS/KND/AR 28Sept2019